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The Love Chapter Revisited |
I Corinthians 13
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© John Ewing Roberts |
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INTRODUCTION I Corinthians 13 is often read at weddings, and it should be, but we should not forget that it was written to a real church in a town called Corinth. It was a church full of stinkers..."quarrelsome, self-consumed, arrogant, intolerant of differences." (Gail R. O'Day, Epiphany - Proclamation 5- Series C [Minneapolis: Fortress Press] 1994, p. 31) It was written to people like them, and like us, people who need to have a love that endures, whether in a family or in a church. I am fascinated by the subject of what makes love last, be it in a marriage or in a church family. That's one reason why I enjoy a story that goes around in various forms about a couple who had been married for fifty years. They were sitting on the porch of their log cabin in the Appalachian hills, each puffing on a corn cob pipe. "You know," she said, "we've been married for fifty years now." "Yep," he said, puffing on his pipe. "Well," she said, puffing on hers, "I'm leaving you." "Why?" he asked. "Because," she said, "enough is enough." What causes people to stay together in any kind of relationship? What causes love to last? LOVE AFTER NATURAL AMPHETAMINES I checked with both Dr. William Dooley and Dr. Clark Riley before passing on the following illustration. "Recent research indicates that, in part at least, what we call `falling in love' can be attributed to the presence in the body of a drug called `phenyl-thylamine,' that is a form of natural amphetamine...The problem is...we build up a tolerance for this chemical in about two to four years." A couple were celebrating their fortieth anniversary at dinner. The wife raised her glass and toasted her husband with these words: "In spite of everything!" In true love there is an "in spite of everything" quality. Our scripture puts it this way: "Love bears all things...endures all things." Love at first sight - that's easy to understand; it's chemistry. But love that endures is more than chemistry, it's got a transcendent quality! (Martin B. Copenhaver, "Saint Paul on Saint Valentine," Pulpit Digest, January/February 1994, pp. 15-16, cited by William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 26, No. 1, anuary, February, March 1998, p. 20) That's the kind of love we're interested in this morning, a love that is patient across the years, a love that wins out over hostility. LOVE BEYOND ANGER Harry Emerson Fosdick pointed out that no one treated Lincoln with more contempt than Edwin Stanton. He called him "a low cunning clown," nicknamed him "the original gorilla" and said that it was foolish to wander around Africa trying to capture a gorilla when one could be found so easily in Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln must have been furious when he heard what Stanton had said, but he said nothing. "He made Stanton his war minister because he was the best man for the job and treated him with every courtesy. The years wore on. The night came when the assassin's bullet murdered Lincoln in the theater. In the little room to which the President's body was taken stood that same Stanton, and, looking down on Lincoln's silent face, he said through his tears, 'There lies the greatest ruler of men (sic) the world has eer seen.'" (William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians [Philadelphia: Westminster Press] 1975, p. 120) Love is patient and lasts beyond surges of anger or amphetamine attractions. LOVE THAT IS UNCONDITIONAL, FREEING AND FORGIVING In the play, A Touch of the Poet, the final work of Eugene O'Neill, arguably America's finest playwright, he wrote about a family we would call dysfunctional. In it the daughter, Sara, tells her mother, Nora Melody, that she should leave her husband. SARA You'd leave him today, if you had any pride! NORA I've pride in my love for him! I've loved him since the day I set eyes on him, and I'll love him till the day I die!With a strange superior scorn. It's little you know of love, and you never will, for there's the same divil of pride in you that's in him, and it'll kape you from ivir givin' all of yourself, and that's what love is. SARA I could give all of myself if I wanted to, but--- NORA If! Wanted to! Faix, it proves how little of love you know when you prate about if's and want-to's. It's when you don't give a thought for all the if's and want-to's in the world! It's when, if all the fires of hell was between you, you'd walk in them gladly to be with him, and sing with joy at your own burning', if only his kiss was on your mouth! That's love, and I'm proud I've known the great sorrow and joy of it! SARACannot help being impressed - looks at her mother with wondering respect. You're a strange woman, Mother. She kisses her impulsively. And a grand woman ! Defiant again, with an arrogant toss of her head. I'll love - but I'll love where it'll gain me freedom and not put me in slavery for life. By the end of the play Sara learns for herself the way of her mother's love and says: Sure, I've always known you're the sweetest woman in the world, Mother, but I never suspected you were a wise woman too, until I knew tonight the truth of what you said this morning, that a woman can forgive whatever the man she loves could do and still love him, because it was through him she found the love in herself; that, in one way, he doesn't count at all, because it's love, your own love, you love in him, and to keep your pride you will do anything.She smiles with a self-mocking happiness. It's love's slaves we are, Mother, not men's - and wouldn't it shame their boasting and vanity if we ever let them know our secret? (Eugene O'Neill, A Touch of the Poet [New Haven: Yale University Press] 1957, pp. 24, 149-150) [See NOTE at the end of the sermon. J. E. R.] WHERE TO FIND TRANSCENDENT LOVE Our theology tells us that if we want a love that endures, a love that never walks out saying "Enough is enough," a love that outlasts amphetamines and anger, a love that frees and forgives, we must look beyond ourselves. Earlier in the sermon I spoke of love that endures as being more than chemistry and having a transcendent quality. We can understand that quality in enduring love if we look at the cross, the event we remember and relive when we gather at the table of the Lord's Supper. If this is so, why do we not promptly and consistently take up the cross of Christ, the cross of a transcendent love that prevails? A very different kind of poet from Eugene O'Neill, Shel Silverstein, wrote a poem called "Morgan's Curse." Followin' the trail on the old treasure map, I came to the spot that said, "Dig right here." And four feet down my spade struck woodJust where the map said a chest would appear. But carved in the side were written these words: "A curse upon he who disturbs this gold." Signed, Morgan the Pirate, Scourge of the Seas. I read these words and my blood ran cold. So here I sit upon untold wealthTryin' to figure out which is worse: How much do I need this gold? And how much do I need this curse? (Shel Silverstein, Falling Up [New York: HarperCollins] 1996, p. 22) When we take a careful look at the cross, we understand that it has been called a curse. (Galatians 3: 13). It means sacrifice and pain and loss of a kind of freedom. (Nora Melody would understand!) We look at the cross and wonder if we possibly could bear it, if we dare to take it up. We know the promised blessing, but we understand the curse. And as in "Morgan's Curse," we wonder of the cross which is worse - the blessing or the curse. But when all is said and done, when we survey the wondrous cross, we know that it's worth going to that treasure of treasures and taking up that cross, because it's... the cross of the love, the cross that sustains us, the cross that draws us month after month to this table with symbols of love's treasure, the treasure that seems like a curse to those who have never been sustained by it. CONCLUSION The reason that love is sustained in a Christian marriage and in a Christian community across the years is a reason beyond chemistry. We are sustained by a love that is ever renewing and ever renewing, a love that will not let us go off because it will not let go of us, a love that gives us the power and energy to keep on loving even when we are not loved back, a love that gives us the will to be like Lincoln was with Stanton, a love that will win out over the years. This is... the love of the cross, the love of the One who said, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," (Luke 23: 34) the love that will win the victory over indifference and hostility, over sin and death, the love so amazing, so divine, that it demands our soul, our life, our all. (Isaac Watts, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," Baptist Hymnal, Wesley L. Forbis, editor [Nashville: Convention Press] 1991, No. 144) [NOTE: I agree with the two persons who told me after the sermon that the O'Neill quote might lead a woman in an abusive marriage to think that I would counsel her to continue to tolerate the abuse. Such was not my intention. Any woman being abused by her husband should leave the home. I would encourage her to seek shelter and counselling on how to cope with her situation. My purpose in quoting O'Neill was to lift up these insights about enduring love from both Sara and Nora: "givin' all of yourself, and that's what love is...It's when you don't give a thought for all the if's and want-to's in the world!...I'll love - but I'll love where it'll gain me freedom and not put me in slavery for life...a woman can forgive whatever the man she loves could do and still love him, because it was through him she found the love in herself..." Unconditional love frees; a woman (or a man) who finds through another such love in herself (or himself) will have both the strength to forgive and also a healthy self love which will not tolerate abuse. I regret that I did not make this point clearly in the sermon. J. E. R.] [This sermon is for circulation within the Woodbrook congregation and may not be reproduced without permission.] |